What has been ruined forever?

So-and-so raped my childhood, such-and-such has been ruined forever—people make those statements all the time, but it’s rarely true.

I dislike the new Looney Toons show, but it really doesn’t affect the original classics at all. In less than 5 years it will have ended and hardly anyone will remember it even happened. “Loonatics,” what’s that?
People were complaining about McFarlane potentially ruining The Flintstones, but I agree with the argument that Flintstones was never good enough in the first place to be ruined.

Transformers is hard to predict. It’s yet to be seen what lasting effect the Bayformer movies will have on future Transformers. Hopefully the series will be rebooted after this latest Michael Bay “film” with a different director who will take the Transformers in a different direction that makes Bay’s latest jive just a fading bad dream.

The only thing I can think of that has been thoroughly ruined is Star Wars. It’s a 6-film series, and half of them are absolutely terrible. How can those horrible movies not affect how one views the original three, especially for those children today who would probably see them in chronological order? Plus, Lucas has given us little hope that the original trilogy will ever be released without CG jive thrown in like he’s jingling keys in front of a baby.

SO, What do you think has actually been ruined by some recent abomination?

It's getting hot in herre

So the temperatures where I live broke 85 degrees today, meaning I had to turn on the air conditioning for the first time since moving into this apartment. ....and it doesn't work. Great. No choice but to open a window and hope maintenance gets here while I'm at work tomorrow. So I wonder, anyone else here notice that their AC doesn't work this year? It's always a bit of a nerve wrecking experience every time I turn on the system after not using it for a good 6 months.

It was kind of funny how my cat was audibly annoyed at how warm it was when I got home this evening. It's like she was telling me to hurry up and do something about it.

Retiring molds

I don’t understand why MP Optimus Prime is being retired. I can understand why a mold for complicated toy parts like on a Transformer would eventually wear out and need replacing after years of being injected with hot plastic, but why does that always entail retiring a figure design for all time? How is the plastic mold made in the first place? Why can’t/don’t they just create new ones? You don’t see Lego bricks being retired, so why is a Transformer any different? With modern toy making, aren’t the designs all digitized anyway? Surely everything used to create the original manufacturing molds isn’t destroyed in the process, right?

Who's disappointed by the new New Beetle?

http://blogs.vw.com/beetle/?context=HomeMasthead

The big reveal of the new VW Beetle was today. I thought it was going to be a poor update the moment I saw the silhouette teaser last year. The interior is nice--classic VW design. But in the process of making the outside of the car appeal more to men, they made it more generic--smooshed, wider, and longer. Some of the rendered promotional images on the VW site makes it look pretty nice, but I was less impressed when I did a Google image search for Beetle 2012. One of the photos I saw today reminded me of one of the most reviled auto designs in modern automotive history--the PT Cruiser. In my opinion, neither of these new Beetle designs have come close to capturing the allure and simple charm of the original. They stick around for 10 years or longer, so it's even more disappointing to know that it's going to be at least another decade before the designers get another shot at it.

New Masterpiece Optimus Prime?

I don't come on the Transformers discussion as much anymore, so forgive me if this has already been discussed. But I guess the final release of MP-01 comes with a hint that they are remaking Masterpiece Prime. If that's correct, what do you think we can expect? Do you think it will be a completely new design that takes cues from G1 but is a modern design? Will it be more to scale with the other masterpiece figures? And does this mean we will also get a new Masterpiece Megatron that transforms into something that doesn't suck?